In optical communication systems, fibers transport information in the form of optical signals. As optical signals propagate along a fiber, various interferences and distortions can affect the quality of received information. One distortion that affects optical signals is chromatic dispersion. To account for dispersion, many optical network elements are configured to include dispersion compensation equipment. To compensate for dispersion in a transport fiber, a dispersion compensator may include a length of dispersion compensation fiber providing the inverse dispersion of the transport fiber. Thus, positive dispersion within the transport fiber is counteracted by negative dispersion within the dispersion compensation fiber. Due to the varying lengths of transport fiber used in optical communication networks, dispersion compensation equipment requires similar variations in lengths of dispersion compensation fiber. This can complicate installation and maintenance of optical communication equipment and potentially degrade network performance.